Norway's largest Internet provider ‘Telenor’ was dragged to court by the movie and music industries last month, after it refused an earlier request to disable customer access to The Pirate Bay. Today, Telenor explains why it didn't cave in to the legal pressure and says it wants the courts to rule on the issue instead.

This spring IFPI gave Norway’s largest Internet provider Telenor an ultimatum. The music industry group demanded that the ISP should block access to The Pirate Bay within 14 days – or face legal action. Telenor ignored the legal threats and IFPI kept its word and took the ISP to court.

IFPI and representatives from the movie industry argue that Telenor is willingly infringing copyright by allowing its customers to access the prominent BitTorrent tracker, but Telenor disagrees with this assessment. In a public announcement today Telenor explains why.

“If Telenor were considered complicit in any illegal activities online, we would have to block access to websites and customers on any suspicion of illegal activity. Telenor would then act as some sort of private police or private censorship authority, which would be very worrisome in light of important issues such as freedom of speech,” Telenor writes.

Blocking websites upon request from the entertainment industry is “unacceptable” according to Telenor. The ISP agrees that piracy is a problem and they don’t support customers who engage in these activities, but they are refusing to censor the Internet without a court order.

“Instead of demanding that Internet providers censor the Internet and monitor the content that’s transferred, Telenor believes that the best way to decrease illegal file sharing is to put more effort into making legally downloadable content available.”

The entertainment industries should find ways to monetize legal content in a way that satisfies both the copyright holders and customer. Blocking access to websites instead would “violate principles which constitute important prerequisites for any democracy”.

It is good to see that an ISP like Telenor is willing to go to court to protect their rights and those of their customers, instead of taking the easy route and giving to the wishes of the copyright lobby. Telenor rightfully emphasizes that the entertainment industry should focus on the source of the problem by developing legal alternatives that satisfy the need of their customers, a position also held by EU Commissioner Viviane Reding.

Even if IFPI wins in court, blocking The Pirate Bay is not going to be very effective. There are several ways to get around it and thousands of other BitTorrent sites. On top of that, the new owners of the site plan to get rid of all the copyrighted content indexed by the site.